Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-23
DANCING.
A French Savant Passes a Favor
able Opinion.


NJ. Bohne, in his history of German
dancing and its future, observes !:
"Man, only, knows dancing"-the
bear does not count because it has no
psychic impulsion." Why do we
Dance? he demands; 80 per cent. do
so for amusement, 8 to secure a sub
stitute for vapor bath, and l for the
love of esthetics. But dancing is also
Il marriage broker, sort of matri-
monial agency. However, the dance
is also civilizing agent. With our
ancestors, nature meant only music
and dances, which, too, were attribut-
ed to the gods. The author states the
old Germans were dancing people !;
modern Germans are not, and that
YOU can travel two months in Germany
without perceiving waltzer; where
as, voyage but eight days in Spain,
fandangos will be visible everywhere.
The demon of dance seizes the
Spaniards on the streets, on the pub
lie places under the porches of houses.
The first musician who arrives and
can touch guitar will compel the ser
want to throw away her broom, the
water-carriers to la. down their pitch
ers, the muleteers will abandon their
mules, and the inn-keeper will quit
his dinner-to dance all with soul and
body. The Spaniards always have "a
foot in the air ready to spring; SO had
once the old German, and so much SO
that their. r.bishops had the greatest diff.
ficulty to prevent their hocks dancing
in the churches-thus initiating the
early Christians. However, sacred
dancing was only a form for
expressing great joy. Renan main
tains dancing never figured in the
Christian liturgy, and M. de Pressense
agrees-for once-with Renan. In
deed, the church had much difficulty
to suppress the old pagan dances.
Bishops and princes thu2dered against
them, but the votaries up to the
twelfth century held their dances at
night in the cemeteries, where they
had the stimuli OF mystery, the fear OF
being surprised, and the feeling that
they were doing wrong.
In the sixteenth century Germany
had Il singular death Dance" exc
cuted at wedding parties. Lots were
drawn to find the individual who was
to die; the doomed one then
stood in the center of the
room, the others danced round
and the individual after a while stag
gered, feil-became dead. All stopped,
then the dancers chanted a funeral
dirge-a funeral hymn. If the de-
parted was man, each girl came one
by one and kissed him on the fore
head, and vic, versa if woman; with
the last death kiss he arose, the music
played a gay air and the triumphal
ronde surrounded the resurrectionist.
The real creators OF that queen OF
dances, the waltz, were the Viennese,
and they monopolize it still. 1t is
thus that Musset wrote: Il would
like a French duchess to be able to
dance as we'll as German cattle dro-
ver" NJ. Bohne believes dancing is
dying, if not dead.
The workmen are debilitated by fac
tory life and soured by socialism. The
sons OF the rich are Worn out by eX-
Gees, by hotbed lessons and eXamina-
tion-educatonal pressure, perhaps.
Piety, too, has departed, for true piety
has made no person sad; wine and
beer are adulterated; people do not
now get intoxicated, but poisoned. In
fact, the moral health of moderns is
less good than that of their ancestors,
who were the most patient under suf-
fering, more brave in the struggle of
life, because less egotistical. We are
devoted only to ourselves.-[Toronto
Week.